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Beware! Hackers these days are busy piggybacking iCloud hack stories, tricking people to give away the login details claiming they are officials from the iCloud.

If you get a phone call claiming to be from Apple warning of an iCloud security breach, beware: It’s just a trick.

Unknown telephone scammers are randomly calling people, claiming that the cloud service of Apple, has been hacked, and asking them to give away their accounts details.

The scam is a very simple one. The potential victim receives an automated message that claims to be from Apple’s support, telling them there is an issue with their iCloud account or that it has been breached. They’re then put through to a human to “help” them.

Apple says no such breach occurred, and security researchers, like Troy Hunt of HaveIBeenPwned.com, say the group trying to extort Apple likely has reused login details from other sites’ password leaks. The first and foremost thing that you need to do if you want to make sure that your account is safe is by turning on the two-step verification step on your iCloud settings.

By the experience from the people who actually was the victim of this scam , there are some of the things that you can keep in mind so that you can tell the call is from the iCloud scammers.

The Call was automated : The fake call used a fairly cheap sounding computer-synthesized voice. An Apple automated call would be much higher quality, and probably use a real person. In worst cases, Siri analog.

The Caller ID number didn’t say “Apple” on it: Caller ID can be faked (there’s no verification process), but the number displayed is from Milwaukie, Wisconsin. You can even search and find a real person’s name associated with that number via a reverse search and his address.

They called back multiple times: Person who were at the receiving end claim that they receive multiple calls from that same number. The five additional calls throughout the day make it clear it isn’t Apple.

Receiving calls on Home phone : You can easily login to your Apple id and check your account details to see the number you have provided during sign up. You can easily figure out that they are just trying to scam you.

Please spread the news. Share this article with your friends and families and colleagues to make sure they are safe from the scammers.

Remember the iCloud hack scandal which left many famous actresses in awe back in 2014? Ryan Collins has been proved guilty to the theft of hundreds of nude photos of Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton, Ariana Grande, Kirsten Dunst, Selena Gomez and more celebrities.

Collins is a 36-year-old male from Lancaster, PA. He signed the plea agreement with the US Attorney in Los Angeles on Tuesday of this week which was brought by federal prosecutors in California. The case is being transferred to federal court in Harrisburg.. Collins finally confessed that he used a phishing techniques to get the usernames and passwords of roughly 50 iCloud accounts and 72 Gmail accounts. Most of those account, according to the authorities belong to famous celebrities. He has not been sentenced.

The maximum sentence for his activity is five years in prison, although prosecutors have indicated that they will recommend just a year and a half. Collins also faces fines of up to $250,000 and possibly 3 years of supervised probation.

The scheme worked like this: Collins would send an email to his mark that appeared to be a legitimate security message from companies and services like Apple, Outlook and Gmail, the kind of phony message you’ve probably received dozens of times yourself. If the victim didn’t realize the scam, they’d enter their username/ID and password and, just like that, Collins had access to their most personal images and information. After that, naked photos of famous celebrities got leaked in websites like 4Chan and Reddit.

FBI Assistant Director of the LA Field Office issued this statement.

By illegally accessing intimate details of his victims’ personal lives, Mr. Collins violated their privacy and left many to contend with lasting emotional distress, embarrassment and feelings of insecurity…

…We continue to see both celebrities and victims from all walks of life suffer the consequences of this crime and strongly encourage users of Internet-connected devices to strengthen passwords and to be skeptical when replying to emails asking for personal information.

Authorities pointed out that they have no evidence or whatsoever of Collin sharing or uploading the photos that he got from those hacked account. However, the time frame lines up with the insane amount of nude photos of female celebrities going online in August of 2014

Lesson to Learn : Celebrity or not, be wary of phishing scams and hacking possibilities. Be extra careful with your account safety. Next time, be cautious about the things that you choose to share on cloud storage.

iCloud pictures hacking scandals has spread like wildfire in the recent days. It is devastating when your private and intimate photos in your drive are hacked through and shared to millions online. This article will be focused on how the theft happened and the steps you can take to make sure that your private photos remains private.

According to apple, the theft was caused by a targeted attack on usernames, passwords and security questions, The hackers used a combination of phishing, social engineering, and using publicly known information about the target to gain access to his/her iCloud account. Therefore, celebrities were mostly the victim of icloud photo hack.

Once the hackers had their hands on the passwords, they used ‘Elcomsoft Phone Password Breaker’ to download the iPhone backups from Apple’s servers. From there, getting access to the photos were easy. Even though investigations have been going on to solve the iCloud pictures hack case, it is always better to be on the safe side. Here’s how you can stop these hacks happening to you:

Using Two-Step Authentication.
It is an additional security feature for your Apple ID that prevents anyone from accessing your account from an unknown device, even if they know your username and password. Once you set up the two-step authentication, signing in from unknown device would require a 4-digit verification code that you receive on your ‘trusted device’, which should be a SMS capable phone number. This can potentially reduce the iCloud photo hacks.
To set up the two-step authentication:

Go to ‘My Apple ID’.

Select ‘Manage your Apple ID’ and sign in.

Select ‘Password and Security’.

Under Two-Step Verification, select ‘Get Started’ and follow the instructions.

Transferring your photo to computer.

Set your iPhone to ‘Airplane Mode’.

Turn off ‘iCloud backups’ from the ‘Settings’.

Turn off ‘Photo Stream’.

Connect the iPhone to your computer.

Launch a program like ‘Image Capture’ that can read the camera roll.

Transfer your images to your computer.

Then, use the program to delete the images from your iPhone.

For extra layer of security, put your images into an encrypted .dmg or .zip file.

Managing Photo sync feature.
Photo Sync, by default, is enabled once you activate iCloud in your devices, so that photos snapped from your iPhone, for example, will be available in your computer via your iCloud account on Apple’s server. Therefore, even if you delete your photos from your iPhone, they will still be stored on your iCloud. Disable the iCloud photo stream and sync feature if you just want your photos in your one device. And, if you like to permanently delete/move photo, you might want to check your iCloud too. So, no photos in your iCloud, no iCloud pictures hacks.